The Film Photo‐Novel “Made in France”

This chapter provides some short complementary background information, before examining the way the French film photo-novel positioned itself against its direct competitor the Italian cineromanzo , the photo-novel and the magazine format adopted by most publications catering to the general audience interested in films and movie stars. In order to get a correct understanding of the aesthetics as well as the cultural relevance of the film photo-novel, it is necessary to briefly present the two media that it brings together and remediates at the same time: the film-novel, and the photo-novel. The chapter analyzes the exchanges between the film photo-novel and New Wave cinema, which were stronger than one might expect in the case of such a low-brow and strictly commercially driven medium. It presents some comments on the vanishing of the film photo-novel as well as on the recent new interest in the genre.